Better Than Starting Manned Wiki
__TOC__ What is Better Than Starting Manned? BTSM is a part and progression balance mod created by FlowerChild, which overhauls Kerbal Space Program 's career mode in order to create a meaningful gameplay experience out of it, rather than the new player tutorial that Squad intended. It focuses on slow and challenging progress as you move upwards in technology in order to increase the overall satisfaction of things like first attaining orbit, and first setting foot on the Mun. It rebalances the tech tree and various parts to this end, also including a small number of new parts where incremental progression would warrant it. It also integrates other mods (currently only 1, Deadly Reentry , but more will come later) as "required mods" to achieve an interesting gameplay balance overall. All told, it makes career mode much more difficult, providing meaningful and diverse gameplay challenges every step of the way. What Features Are Included in BTSM? *Rebalanced tech tree: The tech tree and the order in which parts are unlocked has been thoroughly rearranged to provide more meaningful progression. Every significant part will have to be earned through meaningful in game accomplishments. *Rudimentary life support: BTSM includes basic life support in terms of manned capsules requiring electricity and a life support resource to keep Kerbals alive. Run out either, and they'll expire. This has been balanced so that manned missions are generally much more challenging than unmanned ones for further gameplay diversity. *Rebalanced solar panels: In BTSM, solar panels are only effective roughly out to the orbit of Dres (and even then, only the portions of its orbit closer to the sun). At greater distances you'll absolutely need alternate forms of power generation. *Reorganized part tabs: Parts are re-organized in the editor tabs to hopefully make things a little easier to use without having to flip through multiple pages of parts. *Rebalanced reaction wheels: In vanilla, reaction wheels end up being "one control system to rule them all". As a result, in BTSM, reaction wheels are severely nerfed so that more thought has to be put into how you will control your vehicles both in atmosphere and without. *EVA tech progression and pressurized cockpits: in BTSM, Kerbal survivability is not a given. You will work your way up from unpressurized cockpits, to pressurized ones, to spacesuits, to EVA maneuverability through tech node purchases. This further emphasizes the tech progression and provides unique gameplay challenges at different stages of the game. *Non-click-fest science: In BTSM all experiment results can either be transmitted at 100% efficiency in a single transmission, or MUST be returned to Kerbin for certain experiments. *Space centric progression: for the most part, you can't just run/drive/fly around the surface of Kerbin to gain science. You actually have to get out there into space and do something meaningful in order for that to happen. *Standard real-world time measure: BTSM operate solely on real world days and years for consistency and to avoid player confusion. *And much much more! For a full list of changes and additions, the readme included with the download may be consulted. More Information :New Parts :Changes to Stock Parts :Tech Tree Tiers :Tutorials :Tips and Tricks :Basic (YouTube and such) KSP also useful for BTSM :Interplanetary mission planning tools :FAQ :BTSM Version Change Log ---- ---- Activity Feed Category:Browse